


Violent Like a Kiss

by Batesk7551



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gangs, Multi, Organized Crime, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, established stevebucky, p sure this has been done before, shifting povs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-09 01:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14706306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batesk7551/pseuds/Batesk7551
Summary: The Captain, his Winter Soldier, and his team - the Avengers - keep the streets safe from other gangs like Hydra and the Ten Rings. For years, they're successful in putting a stop to illegal drug distribution, human trafficking, and weapons trafficking - whatever the Avengers could get away with stopping, they did. Now, however, they have some problems - big ones. Somehow, their rivals have information about the Avengers' movements that they shouldn't have. Somehow, their rivals always seem to know when and where the Avengers are coming. To make it worse, Hydra and the Ten Rings seem to be working together, with a third partner funding and feeding their illegal operations. It all comes back to Stark Industries and its acting CEO.And, of course, Tony Stark.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is my first work in this fandom, though I've been binge-reading fanfic for weeks now  
> i was kinda really nervous about posting this because it looks like it's getting longer than i originally intended and i've never posted anything as long as what i already have written for this thing  
> but then i decided to just say fuck it and go for it  
> so ta da!
> 
> also! this is a piece of fiction, written for fun. characters belong to marvel, i'm just borrowing them for a little while
> 
> i hope you enjoy!

“Again!” Steve yells, slamming a fist down on the wooden table. “They got the one-up on us, again!”

Bucky bites at his lip, trying to keep himself from indulging in his own frustration - it wouldn’t help for him to get mad and set Steve off even more. Especially on a night like tonight, when blacking out was closer to the surface than it had been in a while. “Stevie.”

Steve turns to him, hands running through that mess of short blond hair. “Buck. There’s no way that those fuckers could know exactly when and where we were going to be _for the fourth_ _drop in a row_. It’s impossible. We’ve been careful, we’ve been clean, we’ve been downright paranoid with everything - it’s impossible for them to be doing this!”

Looking down at the table, Bucky says again, “Stevie.” It comes out more plaintive than he had intended, but he already knew what was happening, what all of this had to mean. It wasn’t that hard to figure out, given how much their rivals seemed to know. They’d snuck into the base where the drugs were kept, prepared to sneak it all away under the cover of darkness like they'd been doing successfully for months now. Instead of a successful run, they got an empty warehouse and a face-full of Hydra goons waving around guns like they were sparklers.

He already knows what’s happened and he knows it’ll only bring them pain. Especially for Steve, the stubborn asshole, who believed in everyone they worked with, who thought of each and every single one of them like family . . . .

Steve’s warm hand drops onto Bucky’s flesh-and-blood one, white-knuckled. “Bucky, I know what you’re thinking. I know. But that - I can’t take that. I can’t think like that.”

Bucky laughs, an unhappy, bitter sound, hating that their lives made this not just a possibility, but an eventuality. “You have to. You have to think like that. You and I both know that the only way this could be happening is if one of our own was a traitor. If one of our own was a fucking  _ spy _ .”

 

* * *

 

His head  _ hurts _ like a mother- _ fucker _ . 

Tony groans and drags himself up, blinking blearily and trying to get a sense of where he is - not that he’s too concerned. Nowadays, he only ever wakes up in Rhodey’s bed, safe and warm and, despite the pounding in his forehead, feeling good in that way he never thought he would feel, the kind of good that comes from knowing you have a friend that loves you. Most of the time he didn't even need to get drunk off his ass for Rhodey to let him stay over; at this point, he all but lived here.

He yawns, stretches, feels the tension in his muscles draining away, and gets up just as Rhodey pokes his head in through the cracked open door.

“Morning, princess. Bet you’re feeling like a million bucks.”

Tony glares. “Sugarplum, I  _ am _ a million bucks, but I swear to God if you get any louder or any more peppy, I’m gonna hurl.”

Amused, Rhodey turns and heads toward the kitchen of his small downtown apartment, throng back over his shoulder, “Given the amount of fun you had last night, I wouldn’t be surprised if you threw up anyway. Just keep it off my carpets, asshole.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony mutters to himself, dragging himself up towards the smell of greasy bacon.

“And out of your pajamas, we still have class today.”

“Ah, shit.” He scowls, contemplating the idea of just giving up on a second Bachelor’s degree - at least until his Ph. D. was done.

But no, that wouldn’t satisfy the gods who like for Tony Stark to suffer. 

“Coming, honeybear.”

 

* * *

“There any reason we’re meeting in a fucking Starbucks of all places? Come on, Captain, even you have better taste than that!”

“Clint, shut up.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose, waiting for whatever witty rejoinder Clint’s going to throw back at him - but none comes. He looks up to find his team staring at him, brows furrowed and concerned.

He looks at each one of his closest and dearest friends - his family, really - and evaluates them, hating himself for that little niggling doubt he has, that anyone of them could be a mole. Bucky, sitting directly next to him, puts a hand on the small of his back where no one will be able to see - the last thing Steve needs right now is for his team to think he’s in a moment of weakness, even though at one point or another, each of them has seen him there. Right now, more than ever . . . .

The coffee shop is full of people bustling about, full of movement and harriedness, the scent of coffee and sweets lingering in the air. The dull roar makes it hard to properly hear anyone outside of their immediate vicinity - it’s perfect for this little gathering, where no one knows them and where they're unlikely to ever run into people that know them. Their usual boardroom is really just the kitchen table, and what with people constantly in and out of the house all day, there’s no chance for privacy unless Steve makes it clear that privacy is what he wants. But that would mean potentially alerting their spy that something was wrong given how rare it was for Steve to cut everyone off from HQ. 

Gathering up his will, Steve looks each of them in the eye. Clint, Natasha, Phil, Bruce, and Bucky, all of his closest, all who’d saved his life countless times in the past and helped build Steve into who he was today.

“We have a mole.”

He watches them closely in the following moments, feeling guilty for distrusting them. Natasha’s face turns to stone, eyes sharp and assessing and murderous. This would not be the first time she’d faced betrayal. Clint and Bruce both jerk back in surprise - Bruce, always the most open of the lot, looks shocked, as though he didn’t understand what Steve meant. From Clint, Steve gets a hint of anger before he follows Natasha’s lead, capping whatever he might be feeling with a blank expression. Phil closes his eyes, pinching into his Agent face, nodding like he wasn’t surprised - and maybe he wasn’t, considering the life he’s chosen to lead with Steve and his tea,

Steve feels relieved, even though nothing has been confirmed and nothing has changed. Just that they had reacted the way they did - as he expected them to - put him at ease. These were still the people he knew like the back of his own hand, and they recognized the severity of the situation. They knew what kind of disaster a spy could lead to, what kind of It could wreak on the Avengers and everything they'd worked for so far. They would help him, they were on his side. Always.

“We need a plan.” Bucky takes over, hand still firm at Steve’s back. “We need to find out more information, a way to trace this up to the top. Our last four drops were intercepted by the Ten Rings or by those Hydra bastards. Me n’ the Captain think they’ve partnered up again, only this time they’ve planted a mole in our ranks in hopes that they can stop us stopping them.”

Silence reigns as they mull over the information. While team-ups between various gangs weren’t unusual, exactly, it wasn’t commonplace either. Gangs tended to turn on each other the moment it was even slightly in their benefit to do so.

Natasha is the first to break the silence. “I’ll see what I can find out from my contacts. It’s been a while since I’ve had fun anyway.”

Clint shudders next to her, probably at what Natasha’s idea of fun might be, but grins brightly. “I’ll be right behind you, Tasha.”

Phil rolls his eyes, and with that, the tension is broken. Steve was glad they could still laugh and joke despite the severity of the situation. “Of course you will. How else would you stare at her ass when she’s not looking?”

“Hey, you do it, too, babe, don’t lie.” Clint grins salaciously, leaning over to leer at his lovers. Steve can’t see Clint’s hands - they’re under the table, but he’s willing to bet that one is currently creeping up Phil’s thigh based on how the usually impassive man squirms slightly in his seat.

“I’ll leave staring at her ass until after I reach out to my own contacts. I’m sure the FBI has quite a bit of information we’d be happy to use,” Phil directs at Steve, ignoring - bravely - the acidic glare Natasha sends Clint and Phil. “I’ll get started immediately.”

Steve nods as Phil rises up, grateful for Phil’s steady determination and his quick rise to action. “Be careful. I know they’re your old buddies, but if someone catches wind of your association with us, not even your history with the FBI is going to save you from jail time.”

Phil nods. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Someone has to watch out for Clint and Tasha. They certainly can’t take care of themselves.”

“Hey! I resent that,” Clint argues, trailing after Phil and Tasha as they head for the door. “I can open jars on my own and everything.”

Natasha shoots Steve one last look before she disappears from view, one eyebrow raised. Steve nods back at her, and then she’s gone.

“What can I do?” Bruce leans forward, hands folded on the table. 

Bucky shakes his head. “Nothing, yet, Bruce, but I’m pretty sure that we’re going to need your fancy doctor skills before the month is out.”

Bruce lets out a weak chuckle. “How about you at least hold off until I graduate in May?” Bruce’s decision to attend med school a few years back had been a shock, after all that time he'd spent whinging about how he was absolutely not that kind of doctor, but considering the number of injuries Steve’s people retained on a weekly basis, it was more than welcome to have someone who actually knew what they were doing.

“We’ll do our best, Bruce, but you know this line of work never goes down pretty. Remember the incident with the spies in Shield?”

“Actually . . . Bruce, I was wondering - maybe you know any kids down at the campus who’d be willing to do a little bit of digging for us? Someone good with computers?” Steve asks. 

“I’m assuming you mean someone with a bit of discretion and a grey moral code?”

“Whoever you can find,” Steve nods, turns to Bucky. “Meanwhile, you and I are going to do some research of our own.”

 

* * *

After two days of searching, Steve is about ready to pull his hair out, pacing around the living room at HQ - which also doubled as just being the house that Steve and Bucky shared with the rest of the Avengers. Information was trickling in slowly, mainly because everyone was still out. Phil had traveled down to D.C. to meet with a couple of his old FBI buddies under the guise of a friendly visit. Natasha and Clint were still off . . . somewhere, probably seeing what they could weasel out of lackeys until they got something useful. Steve was reluctant to contact them. He’d never really gotten around to trusting phones as secure methods of communication, especially when an ill-timed message could be intercepted by the wrong people. He was largely made fun of for it.

“Hey, Stevie, come look at this,” Bucky calls from Steve’s office. He waits for Steve to settle into a simple black chair next to his, pointing at the computer screen on Steve’s desk, where most of their sensitive planning was done.

“I was tryin’ to find some link between Hydra and the Ten Rings but I couldn't find nothin’ till I accidentally stumbled on this old report - it's for an investigation on weapons trafficking. Look who's involved.”

Steve squints at the screen, wrapping an arm around Bucky’s shoulders as he reads. “Stark Industries? What?”

“Yeah, just a few weeks after Stark died, Stane - you know the one, it's the guy that comes on TV all the time - took over the company because Stark’s heir was too young. After that, the company's had several investigations concerning weapons trafficking, but nothing came out of it.”

“Any of these linked to the Ten Rings? Or any gangs at all?” 

Bucky shook his head. “Nothin’ specific but I'm still searchin’. The police report only suspected gang involvement.”

“Nice work,” Steve says. “Keep looking into it. I’ll start in on this thread, too.” He claps a hand on Bucky’s good shoulder, making to get up and go back to his own search. He doesn't make it very far before he’s yanked back and whirled around. Between one surprised blink and the next, he's looking up at Bucky’s warm grin, seated firmly in his lover’s lap.

“The hell are you goin’, punk? What am I, a dog? I expect better than a pat on the shoulder and a ‘good boy, Bucky’. Gimme a kiss.” 

Steve laughs, presses their foreheads together, then their lips. It's soft and chaste and being wrapped up in Bucky’s arms make Steve feel like he's just a tiny kid from Brooklyn again, kissing his best friend for the first time. Smiling against Bucky's lips, he says, “I love you, you jerk.” 

“Love you, too, punk, now get.” Steve is shoved off unceremoniously, stumbling forward, but not fast enough to avoid a playful swat to his ass.

“Buck!”

“Steve!”

“Boys.”

They each jump, startled, and turn to find Natasha watching at them, expectant eyebrow raised from the open doorway into the office. “I didn’t realize that when Bruce said ‘research’, he actually meant flirting like teenagers.”

Clearing his throat, Steve did his best to keep the blush off his face, ready to protest Natasha’s pointed glance. Bucky just beat him to it. 

“Well, what can I say, I'm irresistible. Stevie just can't help himself.”

Steve groans. “Bucky!”

Bucky grins like the angel he isn’t, ready to keep up his teasing, but he cuts off with one look warning look from their resident assassin.

“Before you boys get back to whatever it is you do to get each other off - I have a present waiting for you in the basement.”

They both stand, serious once more. “That was fast. It's only been two days since you left. Phil hasn't even come back yet.”

Natasha nods at them. “I know. Clint and I got lucky. I got in touch with one of my old . . . friends from Hydra. She had some intel.”

“Wait,” Bucky glares at Tasha. “She’s Hyrda?” Of all the team, she's one of the most intelligent. How could she do something as reckless as asking a goddamn Hydra member to spill information about her own cultish organization - unless maybe -?

“Don't be stupid, Barnes.” Natasha glances at him disdainfully, body deceptively relaxed. Her face is just as blank and smooth as it's ever been when she snaps into Widow mode, except that her cool tone means she's practically spitting at them in Natasha-speak.  “You know I wouldn't risk us like that. And you both know damn well I'm not a Hydra spy.”

Steve holds a hand up, preventing Bucky from responding - good thing, since he didn't know exactly what his lurch forward was going to end up being. “Tasha, you know that we know, you're the last person who would be a Hydra spy, after . . . everything. But someone's a rat around here and until we find out who it is, we can't help but be paranoid, even towards you. We do trust you, otherwise you wouldn't even know that we suspect a spy. Please keep that in mind.”

He only gets a nod from Tasha in response and a half-apologetic shrug from his boyfriend, but right now they have more important matters to attend to, so Steve lets it go.

 

* * *

 

Clint is waiting in the basement, having already secured the unconscious visitor to the Chair - a sturdy metal chair bolted to the concrete floor, covered in what looks like rust and smells like something much worse. 

There's not much else in the room except for a cart holding a few tools; Steve hated that they needed to be there, but in their world, sometimes a bit of violence went a long way. As it was, Steve never handled this particular part of the job. That was more the purview of Natasha and Bucky. Normally he just went back upstairs, past the living room and the rooms of whichever members were crashing at the house for the night, to where he and Bucky slept. The basement was soundproofed as much as possible, but even then, sometimes Steve could hear what went on down here.

But they wouldn't start in right away.

Clint looks up at their arrival from messing around with his bow. He grins and tips his head at Steve. “Captain! Look what we found.”

The man in the chair was slumped over, listing to the side and held up only be the thick ropes that held him down. He didn’t look too roughed up; just a few blood spatters across a strong nose and a nasty-looking black eye. It looks like Natasha and Clint kept it quick.

“Remind me again how you found this guy?” Bucky asks.

Natasha steps up to the cart, surveying the tools that have been sanitized and laid out neatly; a whip, several knives, and a few needle-fulls of anesthetic. “Like I was saying, I was digging around and one of my contacts said she had some info about a guy who was high up enough to know some things. He’s been mixed in with some shady dealings outside the gang, so it won’t be too noticeable if he disappears. He’s got a few hits out on him.”

“And you’re sure you can trust your contact?” Steve asks.

He gets a raised eyebrow in response. “No, I can’t trust her - but we have some things in common, namely that we both want Hydra gone. I won’t tell you more than that.”

Steve nods his head in understanding. Natasha has been with him for going on seven years now, and even after all that time, getting her to open up about something was nigh on impossible when she decided she wanted to keep her mouth shut. If she wasn’t telling him anything more about that contact, it was likely for the purpose of everyone’s continued protection.

“Alright.” Buckey makes to clap his hands together - old habits die hard - but stops himself mid-motion. He doesn’t pause, only goes on to finish his thought, saying, “Let’s get started.”

So yeah, Steve hated this part of the job, all the beating people up and cutting skin and taking men and women who can’t follow orders under a whip. But that brief flicker of pain on Bucky’s face, Clint’s wince and averted eyes, Tasha’s darkened scowl, and Steve’s own flinch when Bucky nearly jostled his prosthetic out of place -

That’s what they were doing this for.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok cool so that's chapter one. sorry there wasn't very much Tony in there, but he'll get here! i don't even think introducing him in this chapter was necessary but i couldn't resist so!
> 
> it's unbeta'd but i did look over it several times, so hopefully grammar and stuff shouldn't be too bad  
> i have the next chapter in need of editing and the third is being written, so there is more to come!  
> also i was thinking of maybe posting this on tumblr too? idk yet i haven't decided
> 
> anyways! let me know what you think, it's good motivation for the writerly soul. thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this turned out to be ready sooner than expected, so I posted it a little earlier than I had planned.  
> Here's chapter two, featuring a scary Natasha and Science Bros!  
> Enjoy!

He registers a dull pain throbbing in his head as soon as he wakes up, and knows immediately that he’s in trouble. He remembers a few punches and a rag being held up to his mouth, then an interminable period of darkness. There’s water, freezing cold, dripping down his face and running into his clothes. He’s bound up in thick ropes; they were well tied, because he feels no slack or give when he tests the strength of his bindings. In front of him are four people - four dangerous people.

The first is the bitch - red hair and a wicked smile that stayed in place all the way up to and through the moment she’d punched him in the face and proceeded to hold a knife up against the skin of his throat, skin that had never seemed more delicate than in that moment. Next to her is the blond he’d seen lurking outside the club. Usually even folks newer to the life of organized crime knew better than to step anywhere near the Hydra gang’s favorite hang-out, where they were just as likely to invite you inside for a drink as to gut you in an ally just for the sheer pleasure of it - and oh, what a pleasure it would have been, had he known that this man with his rag and his bitch would land him here facing down two more men that he’d never met and had hoped to never meet. Had he known, he would have gutted the asshole like a fish and used his own entrails to choke the life out of him - 

“Whoo, boy, there’s a murder glare if I’ve ever seen one!” Says the bastard, grinning toothily at him. He only snarls in reply, baring his teeth.

He spits, “I assume you fuckers have me here for a reason.” He looks at the other two men, the ones he’s never formally met but heard of in horror stories. “Captain. Soldier.”

The dark-haired one grins, an ugly thing, much more a baring of teeth than anything else, while the blond, the Captain, only leans back against a dirty wall, content to watch his prisoner with a neutral expression and sharp eyes. “So you know who we are, then? Good, I’d hate to waste time on introductions.”

“Yeah, yeah, jus’ tell me what you assholes want.” He says, not quite scared but bordering on nervous. It never bodes well when a captor has allowed you to catch a glimpse of their face like this; his chances of survival are dwindling by the second. But he’d been prepared for this day to come. One might call this an occupational hazard.

It’s the redhead who starts in first, straight to business. “What do you know about Hydra and the Ten Rings?”

HIs eyebrows jump up in surprise. “Wait, this is what you’ve gone and kidnapped me for?”

The four exchange looks with each other, and he knows that they’re actually serious about it. 

“It’s all over the place, ya assholes. Hydra and the Ten Rings are doing a - let’s call it a project - together. They’re cleanin’ up house in New York.”

“And what,” Red-head asks, “does that entail exactly?”

“You don’t know? You must really be living under a rock.” He leans his head forward as much as he’s able, fixing a smug grin in place. Maybe he  _ can _ get out of this alive, if he can find a way to bargain information. “They’re taking down the other gangs in the area. Less competition that way. That includes you, ya fuckers. They’re tired of havin’ their drops cut into. Bad for business, you know how it is.”

“And how exactly are they planning on making this little plot of theirs actually happen?”

“Now that one, you know I can’t tell you, doll.”

Redhead inclines her head. “We’ll come back to it, then, and maybe you’ll change your mind.” Her eyes flicker to the cart she stands next to, fingers tracing over a wicked-looking knife with a serrated edge. He has one similar; it’s his favorite. Gets some pretty screams out. He won’t admit exactly how much that one in particular intimidates him.

Red-head is about to launch into her next question when the Captain leans over and stops her with a firm hand to the shoulder, leaning over to whisper in her ear. She nods at her boss, then turns her attention back to him as the Captain and the Soldier leave, taking a flight of stairs that must lead out of whatever dungeon he’s found himself in.

“Look,” he says, “you wanna know anything more than what I’ve told ya? Fine. It ain’t gonna matter anyhow. There’s nothing you can do to stop what’s coming. You’re outnumbered and out-gunned. But if you want me to slip in a few more tidbits, you’re gonna need to pay me for it.” At least, tidbits Hyrdra wouldn’t mind them having

“And let me guess - you want to walk out of here alive in exchange for that information?”

“Got it in one, darlin’.” He smirks and leers at her, hoping to make her uncomfortable with the once-over he sends her way.

“Mhmm. I’ll keep that in mind,” she promises, unflinching. “But until then, I’d like some assurances. How high up are you?”

“It’d be downright stupid for me to tell you that. I ain’t an idiot.”

“Could have fooled me,” she smirks. “But you are high enough to give me information?”

“Yes. And I can promise the information will be good, too.” And it would be. He values his life too much to lie to these people, because at the end of the day, they’re just as bad as his people. And he’s not  _ that _ attached to Hydra.  Not unless it was something that Hydra might hunt him down for slipping. He had a family to think about. Besides, honor among thieves and all that. “I won’t lie about what I do give ya.”

“Then tell me who our mole is.”

This, finally, is enough to surprise him into a few seconds of shocked silence. Hydra hadn’t expected them to catch on this fast. But the spy was too integral to the plan for him to give the man up. If this lot didn’t kill him, Hydra would. If the Avengers did, then his family would be next, if only so that Hydra’s leader could work out his frustration. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

She inhales as if exasperated. “I thought you promised me honesty?”

“Sorry, honey, I don’t know what it is that you mean.” He shrugs as best as he’s able through the ropes that tie him down.

“Alright. We’ll come back to it.”

He rolls his eyes, mainly for show. 

“How about Stark Industries?”

“What?” He all but yelps.

“Interesting,” she says. She is smiling, but it’s a cold, ugly thing. “That got a reaction.”

His eyes widen without his permission. No one - no one was supposed to know about that. Not even him, but he’d been pulled in when . . . well. It doesn’t really matter at this point. “I don’t think I know what you mean by that either.”

“Right. Okay.” She looks to her friend and tilts her head. He gets up and thunders up the stairs. “I’m sure you already know that you’re not leaving here tonight.”

_ Shit,  _ he thinks,  _ shit shit shit. _

“Wait, wait, hold on now -”

“Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider giving me the information I want?”

Angrily, he lurches forward in his seat. If they already knew this much, they were already far too close. “You bitch, you think I’m gonna rat them out when you’re about to kill me anyway?! You’re crazy. I’m not helping you.”

He barely sees her move, but suddenly she’d right up in his face, eyes devoid of any sort of humanity. He wasn’t sure of who she was until that moment, moving so quickly and quietly and with deadly intent. If there was anyone he’d wanted to meet less than the Captain and even the Winter Soldier, it was her.

“If you tell me what I want to know, I’ll make your death fast. If not,” she smirks slowly. “They don’t call me the Black Widow for nothing.”

 

* * *

 

“Wow, you look like shit.”

Tony raises an eyebrow at Bruce. “Look who’s talking. They’re really beating you up back at the med school.”

Bruce shrugs, running a hand through his already messy hair, looking worn out. “Yeah. I’m just about ready to be over it. I miss the lab.”

Nodding, Tony set the machine he’s working at to calibrate using his stock sample solutions, then turns back to Bruce. “Remind me again why it is that you’re doing this? You already have the nuclear physics to keep you occupied.”

Bruce shrugs at him. “Need something to occupy my free time, right? Anyway, look who’s talking. You don’t even have the excuse of being old and bored, you’re just twenty.”

“So?” Tony smirks. “Doesn’t mean I can’t get bored. Besides, it’s not like I’m working a full-time job on the side. Obie’s been running SI so I can mess around in school until I turn twenty-one.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re only working on two different types of degrees at the same time, that’s all it is.”

“What can I say, I’m a genius.” Tony checks back in on the calibration.

Bruce scoffs, settling into his own lab space. “And so modest, too.”

“You got it, Brucie-bear.”

“That’s Dr. Banner to you, asshole. Where’d all the respect go? Kids these days,” Bruce mocks.

“Hey,” Tony whines. “Is that any way to talk to a student,  _ professor _ ?”

“You’re not  _ my _ student.” Bruce points out. “Anymore. Anyway, are you gonna waste time all day or are we gonna get started?”

Tony grins and shrugs into his lab-coat - Bruce refuses to work with him unless he abides by the safety procedures, the goody-two-shoes - and they get started.

 

* * *

 

Bruce slides quietly into the room, out of breath. The general meeting is just finishing up, with several people already shuffling around as Captain finishes issuing instructions. There's not enough room at the dining room table where they all usually convene, so the extra plastic chairs have been dragged out, with several people perched on the dark brown wooden table itself. Once Captain's said his piece, he lets everyone go, and the Avengers - 28 members in total - disperse.

Bruce waves at some of the members as they walk on out - Thor, who only recently joined them, and Darcy, who'd been an interesting addition about a year back. He slid past Maximoff and Foster -- with an apology to Steve already on the tip of his tongue.

“Captain, I'm so sorry I'm late; I got a bit distracted.”

Steve shakes his head, smiling warmly. “Lab-time today, huh? Don't worry about it, I'll get someone to fill you in later. You're just in time for the important stuff anyway. Get yourself something to eat and sit at the kitchen table.”

Bruce rummages through the fridge and makes himself a sandwich, setting the coffee pot to help give him the energy boost he needs after a day of working with Tony in the lab. The others - what he supposes is their gang’s inner circle - is already reconvening, this time in the boardroom instead of the dining room. Even Phil is back, he sees.

When he's finally seated, Steve turns to Clint and asks him to go fetch Natasha. Bruce watches him disappear into the basement. He guesses she's already been at it for a while, just finishing up, maybe, because he hadn't heard anything from down there while coming into the house and there's really only one reason for her to be down there.

When they come back, he finds no sign of blood on her, but then again, Tasha has always been a very neat, very tidy sort of person.

“Alright. Natasha?”

Natasha scowls at the table. “I couldn't get much out of him. He was surprisingly quiet, given what I put him through.”

Steve leans forward. “Did you find anything at all?” 

“He confirmed that Hydra and the Ten Rings are currently working together. They're interested in making New York their own exclusive playground, but of course, that cooperation likely ends the moment they get what they want. I also asked about the mole but he wouldn't give up anything about that, so I don't have any names or identifiers.”

“We’ll just stick with the original plan and keep an eye out until anything changes. What else?” Steve questions.

“I also asked him about Stark Industries.”

“Wait, what?” Bruce blurts.

Steve shifts, having forgotten that not everyone has yet been apprised of the new info. “Bucky and I have been doing some research lately. This morning we cracked open some files and found that SI has had suspected ties to both gangs but nothing solid.”

“I can confirm that our guy downstairs knew that SI was involved somehow but he wouldn't give me how they were involved,” Natasha confirms.

Phil cuts in as Bruce’s mind is set spinning, wondering what the hell is going on - because that's  _ Tony's  _ company they’re talking about, and there's no way that Tony - his friend Tony - could ever be involved with this life. “I also asked around this morning, Captain. It was a bit short-notice so I wasn't able to look too deep into it but an old friend of mine was able to say that the FBI was all but certain of Stark Industries’ involvement in trafficking weapons and funneling money. They were looking into an Obadiah Stane.”

“Okay, wait, wait,” Bruce holds his hand up. “Pause. Are you seriously trying to tell me that Stark Industries is involved this?!”

Steve nods. Bucky, sitting on his right as always, asks, “Is there a reason that's surprising to you?”

Bruce blinks. “I mean, yeah, how couldn't I be? SI creates weapons for the government, they're leaders in clean energy and - well, actually, they're leaders in a lot of things. They just don't seem like the kind of company that would be involved in this type of thing .  . . And besides -”

He cuts himself off, unsure exactly how much he should say, for Tony's sake.

“Go on,” Bucky says, impatient. “What else?”

He sighs, hesitant, and then proceeds. “I know the guy who runs the company. Well, he technically doesn't, not until he turns twenty-one, but the company is essentially his. Obadiah - his uncle, sort of - is running the company for him, for now. There’s no way he could ever let anything like this happen.”

The tension in the room grows, several people shifting in their seats uncomfortably.

“You know the Stark heir?” 

Bruce nods. “Yes, he’s - I work with him, haven’t I ever told you that? I spent the entire day with him this morning!”

It’s a rare thing for their Captain to let concern show on his face in front of them; Bruce isn’t sure he’s ever seen the man look scared except for when Bucky had been taken, and that had been two years ago already. Now, though, Steve’s concern was bleeding out onto his face as if he wasn’t even trying to hold it back. Even more terrifying was the look on Bucky’s - to get Bucky to show concern meant something was  _ really _ wrong.

Which was ridiculous. Bruce knows what they’re thinking, but he’s not an idiot. He’d know if Tony -  _ Tony _ , of all people - was up to something.

“When did Stark first approach you?” Steve asks what all of them are wondering, questioning whether Tony had only befriended Bruce because of his position with the Avengers.

Bruce could already see that this was only going to end with his exasperation. “Oh, for God’s sake, Cap. I met Tony before I met any of you, at the university. He was fourteen. I doubt many fourteen-year-olds are involved in street gangs like the Ten Rings.”

There were a few shocked looks around the table upon hearing Tony’s age. Bruce couldn’t help but feel a little proud on Tony’s behalf. The kid was smart as hell. Actually, he’d been one of the kids in Bruce’s advanced physics classes, younger than anyone who had ever walked through the doors to his classroom.

He’d had a hard time settling in with his classmates. Even amongst the grad students, who were all adults and should have known better, he was often the subject of sneers and, on rare occasion, ridicule. Bruce would have been worried had Tony not proven himself able to stand up for himself not three days into the semester. He was as fast with his insults as he was with his numbers, both of which went a long way in staving off the worst of the of the taunts. Bruce had let him have free reign whenever anyone snarked at him, which Tony quickly took advantage of. It had probably warmed Tony up to him in no small amounts, and by the end of that first semester, Tony was already researching in and helping Bruce’s lab as an undergraduate.

“Nevertheless,” Captain says in his man-with-a-plan voice, which means Bruce is about to have a headache. “Fourteen is a long way off from twenty, which is how old he is  _ now _ . We should at the very least investigate, both Tony and SI. Okay, this is how it’ll go - we’ll start with SI. Stark Industries is a big building with a lot of security; we’re going to want to make sure we have everything planned out as much as possible. Clint, Phil, get me as much as you can on blueprints and security. We’ll go sometime at night when security is going to be tightest, so we’re going to operate in small groups. How many will be decided once we get some more info on the building itself, but I’m thinking that we should send people out in groups of two. In the meantime, Bruce, please come with me; we’re going to need everything you’ve got on Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane. In the meantime, we’ll continue searching through files and records. Reach out to any contacts who might know something.”

“Okay, seriously?” Bruce asks, trying not to let his frustration get the better of him. “Cap, did you listen to anything I just said? Tony is not involved!”

Steve sighs in a rare show of exasperation. “I don’t care what you think about his involvement, Bruce, I care about what we know for a fact. Until we’re absolutely certain of Tony’s lack of involvement -”

“I am certain! I already told you that! Go dig around Obadiah Stane, I don’t care,” Bruce says, breathes coming in quicker. He’d known Tony for six years; the man - boy -  was like a brother to him. If anything should happen to Tony because of the Avengers, because of  _ him _ . . . That was unacceptable. He growls, “Just leave Tony out of it.”

The occupants of the room collectively stiffen. 

 

* * *

 

Steve is not a cold-hearted man. He doesn’t particularly enjoy conflict and he doesn’t enjoy having power only to wield it over others for the hell of it. Fortunately, for the most part he doesn’t have to do more than ask and his team will do as he asks; sometimes, however, he gets an act of outright insubordination. In private, that’s fine. He can work it out calmly with the idiot who thinks it’s wise to challenge him, because at least they did it in private. Sometimes, it even works out to bringing new ideas, new avenues of action to Steve’s attention (though there are better ways than insubordination - that was the whole point of team meetings). In public, in a group setting? That was a different matter. Insubordination like Bruce’s might have gotten anyone else some time down in the basement with the whip, which was meant just for this type of incident - well, for minor infractions, at least. Ten or fifteen lashes went a long way.

Bruce, however, was a special case. Aside from the fact that he’d been one of Steve’s close friends for about five years now, there was no way Bruce would be able to submit himself to any type of painful punishment. Bruce was more likely to slip into his own mind and get lost there, to his ‘Other Guy’, as Bruce himself liked to put it. Getting Bruce mad or afraid was an exceedingly bad idea outside of brawls and scuffles with other gangs in the area.

To say the least, this put Steve in the kind of difficult position he almost never found himself in when it came to discipline among his ranks. Lucky for him, he’s been dealing with these assholes for a long enough time to know what to do.

He puts his hands up, mindful of the tension in the room and in the set of Bruce’s shoulders. “Bruce,” he says gently, “Bruce, I need you to calm down. Are you listening?”

He only gets a glare in return, so no, clearly not.

“Bruce, I need you to listen. No one is going to hurt your friend - Tony, right? We’ll keep him out of it as much as possible, you have my word.” There’s some loosening in Bruce’s posture, but he’s not out of the woods yet. “I know that you want to protect your friend. But you know why we have to do this, right?”

He doesn’t get any acknowledgement. “We need to know what’s going on, for the good of the Avengers and for the good of our city. I promise you, whatever you tell me about Tony will not be used to harm him in any way.”  _ At least, not until I think it’s necessary,  _ he’s smart enough not to say.

His promise seems to do the trick. Bruce slumps in his seat, looking more upset now than anything, but nodding his acquiescence. Steve gets up and beckons him out of the room before Bruce can change his mind. They would have a lot to talk about.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I throw a how to train your dragon reference in there?  
> Yes. Yes, I did.
> 
> Anyway, next chapter is in the works and will likely be up before Saturday this week so check back for that.  
> Meanwhile, leave a comment and let me know what you thought?   
> I'd love to hear from you guys!  
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

“Widow with Thunder, Hawkeye with Agent, Captain’s with me,” directs the Winter Soldier, slipping into his gear. Normally, the team would be wearing their tac gear. That was protocol for any dealings they had with the other gangs in the area. It was too dangerous to interrupt a drugs run without some form of protection -a damn good form of protection. Tonight, however, it would make them look too conspicuous, so they had opted for simple black clothing instead, clothes that were normal enough not to be suspicious in case they were spotted, but dark enough and comfortable enough to suit their purpose. “There are four levels of interest. Number one is the basement level, which holds several labs that, based on recon, belong to Stark. Look for weapons, drugs, correspondence. Next is Stane’s office and Stark’s office. Stane’s is the one right above Stark’s, twentieth level,” the Soldier says, gesturing at the blueprint spread out over the boardroom table. “Finally, there’s the penthouse suite. That’s where Stark himself lives.”

Hawkeye is the first to respond, all of his characteristic humor and playfulness gone. “Who’s assigned where?”

The Captain takes over, stepping forward and leaning over the table to get a better look at the schematics. The Soldier was always good at getting information, at finding the way in, but it was the Captain who was the tactical expert, guiding them through each mission, handing out positions and orders and assignments. “Widow and Thunder, I want you both up in the penthouse. Stark will likely be there and I need your stealth.” Odinson, for all that the new guy was loud and noisy and vibrant, was surprisingly quiet and serious when the time came for it. Natasha, of course, weaves in and out of shadows like she’s made of them.

“Hawkeye, Agent, I’m putting you both in the offices. You’ll have to cover two floors and security looks pretty tight up there, too, so use the vents to get around as much as possible. There should be one direct connection in the vents that lead between the floors - that’s all outlined in the papers you were given earlier. Make sure you review that before we get there. Bucky and I are at the basement level. They have some high tech security, so bring your best, Soldier.”

The Captain waits for everyone to give him their gruff nods of acknowledgement. When no one asks for any clarifications or elaborations on his instructions, he knows they’re good to go. He waves them forward, and both of the other teams head out to the cars settled in front of the house, settling in for the ride. They’d be taking three separate cars, one for each team - there was no use in losing everything in case they got caught. Better to have each team functioning as separately as possible.

He waits until the two teams are outside and waiting, then turns to the Soldier and looks at him not as the Captain, but as Steve. 

As per ritual, Steve leans forward and kisses Bucky, slow and sweet. Nothing overly heated, overly passionate, just the simple slide of Bucky’s lips on his, warmth passing between them, Steve’s tongue gently tracing the curve of Bucky’s lower lip, teeth snagging it in a teasing tug. It’s a reminder of what they need to come home for. Something they need to be safe for. 

“I love you,” Steve murmurs, breaking away and leaning their foreheads together, eyes closed as a hand comes up to squeeze the back of his neck in a familiar, comforting gesture.

“Love you, too, punk.” 

 

* * *

 

 

The ride there is quiet, Thor - Thunder now, for security over the comms, because it never hurts to be too careful - staring out the window of their dark car. The Widow sits beside him, driving carefully behind the other two cars, keeping a reasonable distance away and in another lane. In a minute they’ll split off from each other and each take a different, roundabout route to get to Stark Tower. 

He has a bad feeling roiling away in his gut like a churning ocean. It’s stupid; he’s going to be fine tonight, no matter what happens - and yet still, he can’t shake the feeling that his first important assignment with the Avengers is about to go badly.

His hand creeps towards the cell-phone in his pocket, brushing over it like it might actually give him some comfort. He’s technically not supposed to have it - all of tonight's communications are supposed to go through the comms that everyone was supposed to use on these assignments. A matter of safety, just like the codenames and the black civilian clothes. He doesn’t even know how the Captain managed to get ahold of these. Or perhaps it was Barnes, the Soldier, who might have had access to stuff like this during his stint in the military. It was better equipment than even he was used to working with. But despite the rules that Steve had so very clearly outlined as conditions to Thor being here, not to mention his own policies, he just hadn’t been able to leave it behind.

He glanced at the Widow, who was staring at the road in front of them and ran his finger over his pocket one more time.

 

* * *

 

As expected, security on the place was tight as hell. They’d almost been caught three times at this point, managing to evade detection but only just barely. It was really only thanks to their sharp hearing that the Captain and the Soldier had managed.

They took an elevator down to the basement level - the very first level in the building, where Stark’s personal workshop would be. The only sound was the quiet hum of the elevator and the in and out of their breathing.

On high alert, Bucky scans the elevator walls, looking for video cameras. None are visible but he’s sure they’re still there. It shouldn’t matter either way; Hawkeye and Agent had already reported that they’d managed to set the cameras in the building on a loop, though it had taken longer than usual thanks to Stark’s secure systems. If luck was on their side, it would hold undiscovered until they were long gone from the Tower.

The elevator finally stops with a ding, sounding like a foghorn in the oppressive silence. They’re let out into a long, darkened corridor. One one side, the walls are just frosted glass panes. A couple paces down is a door, made of the same frosted glass. That would be the lab. The hallway is empty of any guards.  _ Odd,  _ the Soldier thinks. He would have imagined that they’d have at least - at the  _ very _ least - two guards down here. He looks at the Captain and sees the same confusion reflected in his partner’s eyes.

On high alert, he creeps forward, Cap following closely behind him. 

The Soldier can’t see anything inside the lab, can’t tell what’s in there except that the lights are off. They’ll be walking in blind.

The Soldier wonders at the idiocy of whoever had designed this place. If he weren’t concerned with getting in and out undetected, he would have just broken the glass to get inside. It was one of the most poorly thought out things he’d seen in awhile, which was saying something. He knew Steve, after all. It made his job easier, but he takes a moment to sigh at the idiocy.

Upon further examination, there is a small keypad right next to the door handle. The Soldier is ready to pull out his keypad cracker, but Steve, the idiot, just reaches out and grabs the door handle, as if that’s actually going to work,  _ what are you even wasting your time with that for, Cap _ , a twist down and - 

The door opens soundlessly.

Steve turns to Bucky, eyes hard, and whispers, “Something’s wrong.”

“Yeah, you’re damn right about that one.”

They still. It takes everything the Soldier has not to draw his gun, concealed under his jacket. He pats down gently, a check to ensure it’s still at his hip, tucked safely into its holster. blindly into the darkness of the lab from where the voice came.

The lights in the lab flicker on. In front of them, standing just where the shadows would have obscured him a few moments ago, was a young man - a kid, really. Dressed in loose sweatpants that hung off his hips and a loose tank top, with a scraggly bed head but sharp chocolate-brown eyes. Tony Stark.

Pointing a gun at them.

They raise their hands up. The Soldier curses himself for not already having a weapon in his hand and at the ready. If he moves fast enough, he could probably swipe at one of the knives in his belt, but as long as the Captain was at risk, he didn’t want to risk movingt in case the kid got trigger happy.

He thinks, for a moment, that the kid  _ will  _ shoot after all, he’s been standing there long enough, or maybe something else will happen to break the spell, all of them at a stand-still, nobody moving, but the kid raises an eyebrow, then steps back and waves. “Well? You made it all the way here, might as well come in.”

If the Soldier was less in control of himself than he was, his eyes might be popping out of his head.

“You heard me. You might as well wait on the couch until the police get here.”

_ Aw, fuck. _

“And if we don’t want to?” Steve asks, like the fool Bucky knows him to be.

Stark smirks, waving the gun a little. “Believe me, you want to.”

_ Okay, message received. _ He nudges the Captain in the side. “Get in there, Cap.”

 

* * *

 

The Captain takes a moment to feel relieved that the comms were on; the other two teams are likely getting themselves out of the Tower by now, having heard that the Captain and the Soldier were compromised. At least there’s that.

They’re brought over to a couch that sits in one corner of the workshop. Next to it is a small, narrow cot on the ground with a blanket and pillow haphazardly piled on top.  _ That would explain the bedhead _ .  

Stark sits on one of the work tables in front of them, looking them up and down consideringly. “So what did you guys come for?”

Neither of them speaks.

“Oh, come on,” Stark rolls his eyes. “What was it? You wanted guns? Blueprints? Did you hear about some weapon you thought was destructive enough and decide to come grab it and see how much damage you could do?”

Shit, they’re in trouble. “No,” Cap says, a touch too immediate and a drop too defensive.

The Soldier turns slowly, sending Cap his Winter Soldier death glare. Cap might’ve been scared of it if he’d been anyone else.

Stark laughs in response. “Right, yeah, okay. You  _ didn’t _ come to the best weapon-making company’s best workshop to get yourselves some weapons. What did you come here for, then?”

“We were curious.”

For a brief second, it looks as if Stark couldn’t comprehend what Cap has said. The Soldier finds himself uncomprehending, too. “What? You were . . .  _ curious _ ?”

“Yes,” Cap nods, putting on his best, most earnest smile. The  _ Stevie _ smile. According to Bucky, he looks like an overgrown puppy when he pulls out that smile. “We were curious. We have a  . . . friend! He told us all about Stark Industries and all the cool things you guys do here, so we just . . . .”

This explanation was turning into a trainwreck. Christ.

“We wanted to come in and see what he was talking about.” The Soldier finishes, picking up where Cap has trailed off, even though he’s not sure exactly where this trail is supposed to go.

Pinching his nose with one hand, Stark pulls the safety on the gun. “Okay, morons, you’re going to have to try again. SI does tours every day of the week. You’re telling me it didn’t occur to you to try that? I want the truth. Now.”

“We are!” The Captain says. “We just knew that if we took a tour . . .  we wouldn’t get to see the cool stuff.”

“Look, hey,” the Soldier exclaims. “You don’t believe us? You can call our friend! You know him, actually.”

Stark, surprised, lowers the gun, then jerks it back up when he realizes he’s let it drop. He knows how to use it, clearly, but it’s also obvious that he has no idea what to do with this situation or with them.  _ Interesting. He knows his way around a gun, but not around actual conflict. _

“What? Do you actually expect me to believe this?”

“Bruce Banner,” the Soldier states.

“Bucky!” Cap hisses. There was a very good reason why Bruce wasn’t here tonight. He hadn’t wanted any involvement in this entire scheme. He’d kill Cap the moment he found out that Steve - his leader, his captain, the man who’d promised him that Bruce wouldn’t be involved - had broken his promise.

Stark get up off the desk, looking incredulous. “You saying that Bruce Banner -  _ my Bruce Banner _ \- told you to sneak into SI in the middle of the goddamn night so that you could satisfy your curiosity?”

“Well, no,” the Soldier amends, digging Cap’s grave as he goes. “Not exactly? He was just gushing over you and the work you do, and we got interested.”

“Of course you did.”

“ _ And, _ ” Bucky presses on despite the interruption, “Bruce suggested that we see a tour or something, like you said, but the more we talked, we figured out that up there,” he waves towards the ceiling, “is interesting and all. But down here is where all the genius happens.”

Stark doesn’t say anything, just staring at them like they’re both the dumbest fucks in the world.  _ Which, hey, that’s valid at this point,  _ Steve thinks.

Knowing he’s going to be torn to shreds by Bruce when -  _ if  _ \- they get out of this, Steve suggests, “Call him. He knows us.”

Reaching into his back pocket, Stark pulls out a Starkphone, eyes never leaving theirs. “If you’re telling the truth,” he says, tone revealing exactly what he thinks of that idea, “then you’re damn lucky that Bruce is usually as up late as I am.”

Steve takes a moment to wonder how in about three short minutes, everything has spiraled so far out of control that he can barely think of himself the Captain anymore.  _ This is such a fucking mess. _

The phone, put on speaker, rings out. After two rings, there’s a crackle and Bruce’s voice rings out. 

_ “Tony? _ ” Bruce sounds concerned. If he’s not careful he’ll give everything away. Actually, he might even do it on purpose. Steve worries at his lip with a tooth, a bit habit he’d picked up front Bucky over the years.

“Brucie-bear!” Tony smiles at the phone in his hand, looking pleased. “How’s my favorite science bro doing this fine, fine evening. Well, morning.”

“ _ I’m okay. Are you?” _

“Yeah, yeah,” Stark says, “I just need your help with something.”

_ “Oh,” _ Bruce replies with badly hidden relief.  _ “Shoot. Are you still working on the stability? The moderator just needs a little push. I think if we calibrate may be able to get to work.” _

“Uh, yeah, no, not what I meant. There’s something else.” Stark looks at them. “So I have two friends of yours sitting in my workshop.”

“ _ . . . What?” _

“Yeah, there’s a blond here, short hair and blue eyes, and then another guy, brunet with a murder face.”

“Hey, Bruce.”

“ . . .  _ Steve.” _

“So you know these guys? Because I just caught them sneaking into my workshop.”

“ . . .  _ I’m going to fucking kill the both of you.” _

“Aw, shit,” Bucky says, grimacing.

“Okay, seriously?” Stark says. “Really?”

_ “I’m so sorry about this Tony, I - I don’t even know what to say.” _

“Don’t worry about it, Bruce. Now that I know they’re not actually after my tech, it’s almost kind of flattering.” Stark grins.

_ Flattering? Wait, what do you mean?! What about this is flattering?!” _

“Actually,” Bucky cuts in, “I think it’s pretty safe to say that you can be blamed for all of this. You were the one that kept going on and on about how cool Tony Stark and his company were. We couldn’t help it.”

“Sorry, Bruce,” Steve says with as much sincerity as he can convey through the phone. “We just wanted to check out that one workshop you were talking about. We may have gone about it the wrong way.”

_ “This is . . . unbelievable.” _

“Yeah, it sort of is. If your friends are telling the truth, I gotta say, you need to get smarter friends.”

There are a few moments of silence where Steve is sure that Bruce is finally coming to realize the lie that they told in full and is reassessing the situation to best determine how to murder Steve in his sleep. They could only pray that Bruce had enough loyalty to Steve and the Avengers to not get them arrested.

“Bruce?” Stark asks, prompting a tired sigh in return.

_ “Yeah, they’re telling the truth, and yes, they really are that stupid. Tony, I’m so so sorry. If I’d known they would do something like this, like they’re a couple of five-year-olds instead of thinking adults, I never would have said anything to them. I’m sorry.” _

“Meh, it’s okay,” Stark shrugs, even though Bruce can’t see him. “But it’s nice to hear that you do love me, after all. Look at you, bragging about your favorite ex-student to all of your friends!”

Bruce groans.  _ “Tony, oh my god.” _

Stark actually  _ giggles _ , clapping his hands together. “Anyway! I’ll let you get back to whatever it was you were doing.”

They hear a put-upon sigh.  _ “Yeah, okay, Tony. I’ll see you tomorrow. Steve, Bucky, you are both fucking assholes.” _

“Hey, now,” Bucky says, tension fully drained from the set of his shoulders now that they’re out of immediate danger. 

“Bye, Bruce,” Steve says sheepishly.

Stark hangs up the phone, blinking his eyes a few times. The smile he was wearing while talking to Bruce is gone now. “Normally, I wouldn’t believe this bullshit. Not many people would be this idiotic,” he addresses them, serious once more. “But you’re lucky that I trust Bruce.”

“I don’t,” Bucky says, putting on an exaggeratedly cross face. “Not anymore.”

Steve and Stark both blink at him, watching as a slow smirk spreads on Bucky’s face.

“What? He tells us about all this fancy tech and all the work he does with you at the university, but all this time he forgets to mention the most important part? He could have a least mentioned that you were hot.”

Stark turns scarlet.

Steve sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Bucky Barnes will live on in my head as the smoothest fucker to ever live.
> 
> 2) Sorry, sorry, this is up a little bit later than I intended. My excuse is that I had plans for this chapter but then Tony Stark just didn't want to comply with those plans? And so he didn't and then I was like, but my plot??? So you can blame him for my tardiness. 
> 
> 3) This is unbeta'd and got only like a cursory glance before I posted it cuz I just wanted to get the damn thing up (still not even happy with this chapter but whatever) so if you notice spelling/grammar mistakes, I welcome you pointing it out so that I can fix.
> 
> 4) Thank you to all of the wonderful people who have left me comments because each of them made my day and helped me get through writing this chapter. 
> 
> I will try to get the next part posted by next Friday! Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

Tony Stark is not an idiot. In fact, he's actually a genius and he had numerous test scores, inventions, and patents to prove it. There’s a reason he works as the head of Stark Industries’ Research and Development department, and it has very little to do with nepotism.

If these two idiots were going to sneak into his lab in the middle of the night and underestimate him, then they’ve got another thing coming.  _ Simply curious, my ass. _

The video camera trick might have been a good idea. Under any other circumstances, with anyone else involved, it might have been hours before anyone had noticed anything wrong. But Tony had designed SI’s security systems himself, and he wasn’t the kind of idiot that would neglect putting in an alert system that would inform him of when someone was attempting to tamper with his systems. There was no way to recover any record of what the idiots had been up to while Tony hadn’t been with them, but at the very least he’d gotten to them before they’d grabbed anything out of the workshop.

Still, this left him with the problem of having two men caught out in his workshop, one stony-faced and stoic, and another who apparently didn’t understand the meaning of ‘inappropriate flirtation’ (not that Tony had any room to talk), and of course he couldn’t forget how one of his two best (only) friends of six years was somehow involved and had very clearly just lied to his face to help his other friends (co-conspirators?).

“Mr. Stark,” says Blondie, sending several shudders down Tony’s spine.

“Just call me Tony,” he tells Blondie, “You broke into my workspace, I think we’re past formalities.”

“Mr. Stark,” the guy says again, ignoring Tony like the asshole he seems to be, “Are you going to hold us here until the police arrive, or will you be letting us go after Bruce confirmed we’re not here to steal anything?”

_ Oh, shit, yeah. That.  _

The thing about Tony is that he hates not knowing things. That’s why he's usually the smartest, or at least one of the smartest, people in the room at any given time. Not knowing is like having blurry vision that obstructs him from being able to move properly, function properly. He can’t deal with his problems unless he knows everything about those problems, down to every last scrap of metal that makes them up. 

And so, he’s not entirely sure what to do with this problem. There are too many unknown factors, too many things that he’s not yet clear on. He can’t assume these people are safe just because Bruce said so and he can’t assume Bruce is his friend just because it’s seemed that way for the past six years.

As one might expect, sometimes gaining knowledge means taking a few risks and getting up close and personal with stupidity.

Or maybe that’s just Tony.

“I never actually called the police,” Tony decides to admit. “You’re free to go.”

There’s no relief visible on Blondie’s face, but lucky for Tony the other one - Bucky? - took the bait that Tony decided to set out in what was probably one of the more idiotic snap decisions he’d made in his life. 

“Aw, are you kicking us out so soon, doll?” Bucky drawls. Tony thinks he detects a hint of Brooklyn in that dark voice, which is bad because Tony’s always kind of had a  _ thing _ for accents (don’t judge) and if he’s going to play this game then it has to remain a game.

He lets a slow smirk spread across his face, turning on the charm he uses for men and women he usually meets in bars. With a hint of suggestion in his stance, he shrugs, “I mean, you made it all the way here, didn’t you? I could give you the grand tour. I’m told I make for very good entertainment at night.”

The brunet’s surprise gives way quickly to a delighted grin, as though his flirting hadn’t just been the distraction Tony suspected it was meant to be. 

Blondie, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to keep his hands from turning into white-knuckled fists, sending a severe frown towards his partner, actions fast enough that Tony might have missed it if he hadn’t been watching them so closely.

_ Anger?  _ He wonders.  _ Or, no, maybe . . . jealousy? _

“Maybe a raincheck,” Blondie states. 

The brunet doesn’t turn to look at his friend, but Tony can tell he kind of wants to.

_ It’s okay. _ Tony would give Tall, Dark, and Flirty exactly what he wanted.

“How about this weekend. Saturday night okay with you? We’ll make an evening of it.” 

As expected, the brunet quickly agrees before Blondie gets a word in, and Tony has a date with finding out what these men want in just a few days.

And now he even has time to prepare.

 

\---

 

They meet again early morning once everyone has had an hour or two of sleep to go on. Steve had already let the rest of the Avengers know that they should avoid coming in until he gave the all clear. For most of them, this kind of thing has already happened before, once or twice every year when something sensitive was going on. They wouldn’t badger their Captain to be let in the know until he was good and ready to tell them, and Steve was proud to say that it was thanks to the fact that he’d never given them a reason to doubt him in all the years he’d been with them. 

It also didn’t hurt that a select one or two had accidentally exacerbated the bad mood he carried around when private meetings with his most trusted became necessary.

Six people sat present at the table, Thor’s place taken by Bruce, who’d demanded that he be involved in the morning’s discussion, as if he hadn’t known damn well that Steve’s intention had always been to include him in anything involving Bruce’s weird work friend.

“Debrief.”

Phil begins, straight to the point. “I took Stane’s office. I wasn’t able to get as much information as I like, but I was able to at least copy some of the information from his computer onto a flash drive. The data was heavily encrypted so we’ll need to decrypt it and that’s going to require work above the skill level of any of the Avengers, I think. I know I can’t. Maybe Bruce or even Darcy if you want to involve her, but I know coding isn’t either of their specialties. Other than that, I have nothing. There was no time to look at physical files.”

“Clint?” Steve prompts.

“I had Stark’s office. I wasn’t able to get into his systems at all, not anywhere near data. I also set off an alert once I started rooting around to deep, but!” Clint holds up a hand at Steve’s straightening posture and Bucky’s forming Murder Glare. “I was able to stop the alarm and wipe away any evidence of my presence from his computer.”

“And you’re sure that you left nothing behind?” Steve demands. With Clint’s solemn nod, Steve addresses the group at large. “We’re going to need to watch out for that. Keep your eyes out on the news for any sign that someone compromised SI last night.”

From his chair, tucked further away from the rest of the group in his show of unhappiness, Bruce scoffs.

“Bruce?” Steve asks sharply. “Anything you’d like to add?”

“No,” Bruce shrugs. “I’m just waiting for a phone call.”

Bucky squints. “What?”

Steve waves his hand at the two of them. “If it has nothing to do with this meeting then I don’t care about it, I just want to get this out of the way so that we can move forward. Take personal calls on your own time, Bruce. Anything else, Clint?”

Carefully, Clint says, “Nope. All good on my end.”

“Natasha, then. Go.”

“There’s really not much to say about STark. He didn’t exactly leave blueprints lying about on the coffee tables. I even took the opportunity to search his room when I found out he was down with you -”

Steve holds up a hand, stopping her with a glint of anger in his eye. “I’m sorry, did you just say you found out that we were compromised and you decided to stay back and mess around in Stark’s bedroom?”

She shrugs, not looking in the least bit remorseful. “I had the opportunity so I took it. You and I both know I  wasn’t in danger of being caught, whether he’d called for security or not. I’m far from an amateur.”

Steve wants to shake his head, only just managing to restrain himself from doing so. “You know exactly why the rules we have exist. You do  _ not  _ risk yourself when it’s not necessary. We’ll talk more about this later. What else? What did you find in his bedroom?”

“Nothing,” she picks back up where she left off. “I found nothing. There were clothes in the closet and sheets on the bed but it looked like he hadn’t so much as touched anything inside that room for months, except for the door handles.”

Bucky questions, “Are you sure it was his room, then? Maybe it was some kind of guest room?”

Natasha shakes her head. “No. I found some of the guest rooms. Those beds didn’t have any sheets. And besides, this room had a picture of the Starks on a nightstand by his bed. It was covered in dust like everything else, but I doubt a picture like that belongs to any guest room.”

“It did look like Stark had been sleeping down in his lab space when we came in. He had a cot down there, some blankets.” Bucky nods along.

Bruce, from his corner, huffs. Steve sees a small, knowing smile aimed down at the floor. Quietly, Bruce says, “Yeah, that sounds like Tony. The man lives and breathes his work.”

“Must be lonely,” Phil comments.

“He is, sometimes,” Bruce agrees. 

Feeling sorry for the man is not what Steve needs right now. Not for himself and not from the rest of the team. “Natasha,” he says pointedly, steering the conversation back to where he needs it. “Is that all?”

She looks at him, boring holes with her eyes. “No,” she says aloud, but Steve knows already how to read between the lines she gives him.  _ Not now _ , is what she means. 

He blinks, a touch slower than he normally would, an acknowledgement, and then Bruce’s phone goes off.

\---

“Tony?” Bruce says upon answering his cell, glancing amongst his friends.

No one is close enough to hear the other side of the conversation. Steve motions at Bruce to put the speakers on, but Bruce is too tired of playing by Steve’s rulebook when it comes to his genius friend who was likely calling to demand the truth.

And Bruce would give it to him.

“Hold on, Tony, I’m getting to a quieter place. I’ll call you back in a minute.”

He hangs up, glares at them, gets up, adjusting the coat he’s already wearing.

Realization washes over the Captain. “You were expecting a call from Stark. You already knew he would call you again after tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Bruce concedes. “I did know that, because what sane person wouldn’t do that.”

Steve stands, as if getting ready to block him from leaving. “And what exactly are you planning on telling him.”

“Exactly what I told him last night,” Bruce says. “I’m not happy about it but I refuse to involve him more than I have to.”  _ It’s too late. He’s already involved. And you don’t know him, but I do. He’s not about to just sit back about this.  _ “He just needs some reassurance that everything is okay.” He raises a brow pointedly. “Mind if I go do that now?”

Bruce’s path is cleared.

\---

Bruce calls Tony back from within his car, driving away from HQ with no plans on coming back until his blood pressure is good and down.

“Tony?” He asks when the call is picked up.

“ _ Bruce?” _

“Sorry about that,” he apologizes, turning right into an empty parking lot and pulling the key from the ignition. “I had to get to a private spot. I’m sure you have questions and I needed to be alone to answer them.”

__ _ “Why?”  _

“Because I intend to tell you the truth to whatever questions you have, and there are people who don’t want me to do that.”

_ “Your friends, Blondie and the other one.” _

“Yes.”

There’s a pause.  _ “This conversation feel way too fucking cryptic. It’s really too early for the amount of gloom and doom in your voice.” _

Bruce blows out in a huff of laughter. “Well. I feel a bit gloom and doom. Look, Tony, I . . . you’re one of my closest friends and I want to be honest with you. You’re like my little brother. An annoying little brother, but still.”

_ “Ugh, don’t start getting all mushy on me. Love you, too, blah blah.”  _ Bruce smiles at his cell, knowing that Tony’s delivery might not have been sincere, but the words were. Sometimes with Tony, you could just tell. _ “Are you going to get in trouble by telling me this?” _

“That’s not important.”

_ “Um, yeah, Bruce, it kind of is. If you’re mixed up in something bad, you know that I’ve got your back, right? I just - I got lied to last night and I want to know why. I don’t think . . .  or I guess I don’t want to think that you’d lie to me for no good reason.” _

“Last night I was trying to protect my friends and myself.”

_ “And now?” _

“And now I think the best way to protect us is for you to be in the know. I’d rather not have you rooting around in places you don’t belong just because you’re looking for answers. Actually, that reminds me of something. I need a promise from you.”

The phone crackles a bit with what must be movement from Tony’s end.  _ “It depends on what I’m promising here.” _

“Once I say what I have to say, I need you to stay out of it.” Bruce doesn’t have very high hopes for Tony’s cooperation. “That means you don’t go looking for more information, and if you can find it in yourself not to go to the police, please don’t.”

_ “Wha- okay, man, now you’re scaring me. Just tell me what’s going on.” _

“I’m guessing I can’t count on your promise?”

_ “Did you really think you’d be able to?” _

“Yeah, right. Tony Stark, actually following instructions. I just . . . hoped.” 

_ “Lay it on me, buddy.” _

\---

“Okay, I’m sorry, let me get this straight - you’re in a fucking  _ gang?” _

Bruce shrugs a little helplessly. “Not exactly.”

Tony stares incredulously from his spot on his couch in the penthouse. He doesn’t say anything, but then the look says everything for him. \

“So yeah, sort of exactly. We’re not exactly conventional.”

That startles a laugh from Tony. “Conventional? You’re a gang. A vigilante, crime-fighting gang that calls yourselves the  _ Avengers _ , of all things.”

The relief of how well Tony has taken everything is nearly overwhelming in its intensity. Bruce knew Tony was loyal enough to the few friends he had to at least hear Bruce out before he might go running to the authorities, but this reaction had been much better than the skeptical, incredulous, betrayed picture that he’d painted in his own head. 

“I promise you, I’m not the one responsible for the name.” Bruce smiles.

“Good. I know you have bad taste, but at least it’s not that bad.” Tony holds up two hands in front of his face to block the pillow that’s sent his way. He lets it drop to the ground, kicking at it lazily. More soberly, he says, “You know I can’t stay away from this, right? You said that SI was somehow involved. That makes it my business to get involved.”

Bruce shakes his head. “I don’t want you getting close to it. It’s dangerous.”

“Someone is stealing SI weapons, or someone in my company is dealing under the table. That’s what makes it dangerous, and that’s my responsibility!” Tony runs a hand over his face. “No, I can’t let this go. Even if you hadn’t told me the truth right now, I would have figured it out eventually. I was already making plans to get involved with your friends, to see what I could get out of them.” Tony fixes him with a knowing look. “So, you know, you can relax. Whatever happens next isn’t on you.”

Bruce’s laugh is bitter. They both know that it is his fault. He’s the one that gave Steve the information he wanted to know about Tony. “I don’t really feel like arguing over blame right now. I just want to know what your next move is.”

Tony stands, stretches, and starts pacing. “Normally, at this point, I would talk to Obie. He’s the one in charge of most things at SI.”

“No!”

Tony startles at Bruce’s outburst. “What, are you telling me you seriously think Obie is involved?! He’s basically my uncle!”

Holding his hands up placatingly, Bruce shakes his head in disagreement. “I’m not saying anything one way or the other. I’m saying that you need to be careful who you tell and what tell them. I know you don’t think Obadiah Stane is at fault for anything but can you say that with certainty?”

“Yes!” Tony defends, then groans. “ . . . Mostly.”

“Exactly. Mostly, but not one hundred percent. Wait until we’re sure. There’s no use scaring whoever it is, if there is someone at all. Wait for the facts.”

Tony’s gives Bruce his most skeptical eyebrow-lift, pacing stopped. “What, the facts that you and your gang are going to gather? You do realize that I caught your boys within five minutes of their entrance to the building.”

He doesn’t have much to respond with to that because Tony is, as usual, sort of right. The Avengers are a highly skilled group of people, but against two other gangs and a possibly a company like SI, they were out of their depth.

“Hey!” 

Bruce watches his friend’s face brighten with a new idea, the same expression he makes when he’s struck with inspiration in the lab, and knows he’s not going to like it.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I know this is late but I had to completely rewrite this chapter in the middle of the week cuz it just wasn't going where it needed to go . . . whoops! And I'm still not happy with it but I don't think I'm going to be no matter how much I mess with it so this is it, my friends.  
> I think I'm just going to set Saturdays as update days, and if I'm not ready to post by then then I'll just post an edit in the last chapter's notes.  
> Anyways! Let me know what you thought about this one and if you think there's some way for me to improve it. I'd be more than happy to hear some advice!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! An update!  
> This has been read through several times but as always, lmk if you see any mistakes.  
> Enjoy!

“You want me to do  _ what?! _ ” Bruce all but shouts, dumbfounded.

“I want you to steal back what they stole from me,” Tony shrugs, smiling winningly at his friend, prepared to go the distance in convincing him. “And you’re going to have the perfect opportunity to do it.”

“Tony.” Bruce grabs his friend by the shoulders, shaking Tony slightly as though that would deter him from his own stupidity.  “No.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the time Saturday rolls around, nearly everything is in place. Bruce has passed along a message to Steve and Bucky, that Tony was serious when he’d said he wanted them to come see the workshop. According to Bruce, this would leave the Avengers’  headquarters free of Avengers who knew what was going on concerning Tony and SI and who would therefore be less suspicious if they caught Bruce snooping around.

That would give Bruce plenty of time to go steal back the information that was stolen from Tony, making it harder for the Avengers to get in Tony’s way. It also took away the possibility that the Avengers had sensitive information about SI’s projects or employees - if it means protecting the numerous people that Stark Industries employs and protects, Tony would even go out to get the drives back himself. As if he was  _ ever  _ going to put that kind of information in the hands of some vigilante gang, especially one as clearly incompetent as this one. Hopefully no one has been able to access the data yet. Tony is fairly confident they haven’t; he was the one, after all, to secure the data in the first place.

After that, Tony planned to launch his own special variety of internal investigation. 

The truth of the matter was that Stark Industries is a company run by people who are thorough. Their facilities are secure, their technology is secure, and they are meticulous about where everything goes and when. Most importantly, their record keeping is meticulous. Tony has access to every single file that details shipments and transport and deliveries. According to the records that he’s reviewed in the past few days, the outlook isn’t too good. On paper, there is absolutely no evidence that anything was disappearing. No reports of stolen tech whatsoever.

If Bruce is right, then at  _ least _ five shipments of weapons had been stolen by these Hydra guys and the Ten Rings. If there isn’t a record of these things being reported stolen or having never reached their intended destinations, well. That meant someone is intentionally not reporting the absences,

It came down to the fact that something was wrong with his company and, always the mechanic, it was up to Tony to fix it, something he could only do if he could rest assured that any delicate information was in safe hands, and any delicate spying on his company was in competent hands.

So, first his data back, then some data-retrieval of his own. And after that - he’ll just have to see what he finds out.

 

* * *

 

Stark’s workshop is amazing.

They’re supposed to be here to see if they can salvage anything from their first failed attempt a few days ago, but the moment Bucky steps into the spacious workshop for the second time, he’s taken aback by how much he missed the first time around. He’s so taken by it that it even takes him a while to notice Steve’s subtle gestures to  _ fucking focus, Bucky, we’re not here for fun. _

But in his defense, the workshop is  _ amazing _ when you look at it in broad daylight and don’t have to worry about the police on your tail.

It’s a bit messy, yes, with tools lying about on the tables and on the floors. There are blueprints everywhere, too, some covered with grease stains and what look like coffee cup rings. There are a few disassembled weapons lying about, mostly handguns but also one rifle. Stark warns them not to go anywhere close enough to touch anything, and he still watches them like a hawk, but if he had the approval and the time, Bucky would’ve been all over those beauties. He tells Stark so himself, and gets an appreciative laugh and a thanks, and possibly a slight blush. 

The last one might’ve just been his imagination, though.

There’s also a pile of scrap metal along the far wall, and next to it a - well, he’s not sure exactly what it is. It set up on four wheels with a cylindrical base and it looks sort of vaguely like a microscope, one of the fancy ones that his and Stevie’s school back in Brooklyn had always been too poor to afford.

Stark notices the object of Bucky’s current fascination and his face softens into the doofiest expression Bucky’s ever seen off of Steve’s face. He’s entirely certain that Tony is unaware of how his entire demeanor softens.

“Oh, that’s just DUMM-E,” he announces, a touch proudly. “He’s a learning ‘bot I built when I was fourteen.”

“A learning ‘bot?” Bucky questions.

Stark waves him over and they step closer to the machine to get a better look. Steve doesn’t follow. When Bucky glances back, he’s motioned forward silently while Steve backs up a few paces to look around now that Tony’s attention is absorbed in something else.

Soon, Bucky’s sees  _ why  _ Tony’s so preoccupied - he becomes pretty caught in his own awe.

The robot comes to life when they get about ten or so feet close to it; he nearly jumps right out of his skin in surprise. The thing has a camera attached to a metal arm that appears to look Stark and Bucky over. If a robot could be pleased about what it ‘sees’, this one would be. It beeps and whirs excitedly as they approach.

“Bucky - can I call you Bucky? Meet DUMM-E.”

The ‘bot’s arm reaches out to hover in front of Bucky’s face, taking him in with a curiosity that ought to be impossible for a machine. “You built this?!”

“Him,” Tony corrects. “Yeah, I built him when I was fourteen and I had too much free time on my hands.”

Didn’t Bruce say that Stark had only just started college at fourteen? Bucky thinks back to his own college days and remembers how busy everything had been in his first few semesters, how overwhelmingly new. He couldn’t help but feel impressed with Stark, against his better instincts at marveling over someone like Stark. Someone who might have been the cause of so much of his suffering.

He’s distracted from his darker thoughts when the arm whirs some more, coming down to lightly bump Tony’s head a few times, beeping softly, like the ‘bot is trying to pet his creator.

“Stop it, DUMM-E, you big idiot,” Stark scowls, quite obviously not meaning a lick of the mocking ire in his tone. “Get off me, you big lump.”

To Bucky’s surprise, the ‘bot actually listens, drooping down so that his camera is angled towards the floor and it, or rather,  _ he _ looks for all intents and purposes like a kicked puppy. “He understands you?”

Stark nods, still scowling at the robot. “Yes, he can. He’s an AI. A really basic one, nothing too fancy, but he can learn things and behaviors, and he acts without being instructed to do anything. Including acting as if he’s never had a drop of attention in his life!”

DUMM-E’s arm stays drooped, but his camera angles up to look at his creator from below, hopeful. His plaintive beeps draw a put-upon sigh from Tony, who finally concedes and drops his own arm down to give the robot a few pats.

Instantaneously, the bot shoots up and whirs happily, spinning in half circles like it’s just one something. Stark is trying to bite back a grin and failing. 

“He’s amazing,” Bucky tells Tony, sincerely. “He really is. Is it okay if I touch him.”

Stark shrugs nonchalantly but the set of his mouth is pleased. The man really wears his heart on his sleeve, Bucky can tell. “You’re going to completely spoil him, he’ll be insufferable after this, but sure, fine.”

He reaches out to pet the robot with his good arm, stroking along the cool metal of its arm. In turn, the robot beeps back at him. “I just . . . he’s amazing.”

“Wait until you meet his brother,” Tony smirks proudly. “If you think DUMM-E’s cool.”

“His brother?”

“Yeah,” says Stark, “JARVIS. Maybe I’ll show him to you later.”

DUMM-E beeps again, unhappy at not having their attention anymore. He nudges Bucky’s arm, seeking his attention again. The bad arm.

It doesn’t hurt, and even if it did, Bucky is too used to pain to react to something so small, but it does jostle the prosthetic, setting it slightly out of place. It’s more surprising than anything, just because Bucky isn’t used to people willingly touching that arm anymore. They tend to avoid like the plague, like one mention of it might send Bucky into a tail-spinning panic attack. DUMM-E clearly has no compunction about toughing it, though. He simply beeps confusedly over the arm, looking over it as if it’s done something entirely unexpected. He manages to tap at it a few times before Tony realizes what’s happened.

“DUMM-E, stop it! Fuck, I’m sorry,” Tony apologizes, contrite. “I don’t think he’s ever seen someone with a prosthetic limb before, he was just curious. He won’t do it again, will you, you stupid hunk of metal. I’m sorry.”

Bucky shakes his head. “It’s fine. You said he was a learning ‘bot, right? He’s jus’ tryin’ to learn about something he’s never seen before.” At Tony’s increasingly skeptical look, he reassures, “Really, it’s okay. Didn’t even hurt.”

He gets a searching look, but Stark drops the matter and lets it go, turning instead to refocus on Steve.

Come on,  _ Steve _ .” He emphasizes, causing Steve’s head to snap in their direction from where he was examining some sort of gun on the table, fingers just a few inches to close for Tony to let it pass. “Why don’t you come over and I’ll explain JARVIS to both of you. He’s another one of my AIs.” Tony turns back and informs Bucky, low enough that Steve is too far away to be included in the conversation. “I’m still working on him but his coding is almost complete. I think you’d like him.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce tries. 

He buys two flash drives, exactly like the ones that Clint and Phil used the other night. They don’t have anything on them, so as soon as anyone tries to take a crack at the data again, the ruse will be discovered, but at least the similar drives will but them off for a while.

The house is mostly empty. Wanda, Darcy, and Sam are somewhere upstairs. Last Bruce checked, they were playing some sort of hybrid poker game. Their presence might have made things more difficult for Bruce - Steve would only have four people to suspect of stealing the drives - but there had been a rotation of people in and out the doors all morning, which wasn’t at all unusual on any day of the week. Natasha, Clint, and Thor had already been in and out the doors several times. 

Hopefully, when the drive is discovered missing, there wouldn’t be too much suspicion cast on any one person. Namely, Bruce.

He sighs, ruffling a hand through his hair. He really didn’t want to do this.

The drives were being kept in Steve’s office. The door was shut and locked whenever Cap or Bucky weren’t in there, but one of the many skills Bruce had picked up during his time with the Avengers was the ability to pick locks.

He really didn’t want to do this.

But he picks the lock making quick work of it. The door opens with a slight creak. He’s pretty sure that no one in the house would have heard it what with how much noise they were making upstairs, but it wouldn’t hurt to be sure. When nothing happened, Bruce shook his paranoia off and quickly slipped in, making sure to close the door behind him and lock it for good measure.

He really  _ really _ didn’t want to do this.

Steve, of course, wouldn't make it easy for him. The drives are nowhere in plain view, so Bruce is going to have to search for them.

Steve’s office is surprisingly neat, Bruce thinks, as he always does when coming into the room. Not that Steve struck Bruce as a particularly messy or disorganized person, but the books settled on the shelves behind his desk, all worn out and yellowed, were lined up neatly so that not an edge broke the straight line they made about two centimeters from the edge of each shelf. There was a stack of files sitting neatly on the pristine surface of the wooden desk, right in front of Steve’s computer. A row of writing utensils decorated the left side of the desk, where there was free space to work, first blue pens, then black, then pencils, organized by size.

The computer was old, the monitor’s dull metal surface already chipping. 

There was a small drawer on that same side and a small cabinet beneath that. Both had locks built into them, but even after searching the small office, Bruce didn’t find them. 

These he’s more wary of picking. It was easy to damage a lock if you weren’t careful and it would be easier for Steve to notice damage to the tiny locks on his desk, if only because these kept safe things that Steve wouldn’t want anyone to easily reach and he’d be on high alert in making sure they had been untouched and undamaged by anyone.

But did he really have a choice about it?

No. Tony was counting on him and he’d already been let down enough times in his life.

Bruce set to work, first attempting the drawer, slowly and carefully, trying his utmost to be delicate in his work. He wasn’t that great at this, and smaller locks always felt more difficult to him even without the need for extra care.

Finally, after several tries and some creative swearing under his breath, he manages to pick up a pin. Hopefully, it’ll be easier to get the rest of them without dropping the first.

It takes him longer than he anticipates, and by the time he manages to lift all the pins and tug the drawer open, he’s sweating with nerves. He isn’t sure when Stev would be back or what he might say if he caught Bruce.

Steve, in general, is relatively kind to the Avengers, choosing not to engage in the fear tactics and violent threats that gang leaders tended to favor, but after everything that Cap had been through to get to where he was now, the number of betrayals the Avengers had gone through in those early years, even the Captain was willing to resort to the worst measures to keep his people in line. Bruce was sure that Steve Rogers hadn’t always been as callous as he had turned himself, going off of Barnes’ stories, but sometimes life made thick skin a necessity.

That said, Bruce tried not to think about what happened last time the Captain had found someone betraying him. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience for anyone.

He finds the drives shoved towards the back, buried under more of what he assumes are sensitive documents, all tucked into manilla folders. He takes them out, feeling their weight in his fingers. 

They feel heavier than the ones currently stuffed in his back pocket, heavier than they should be. 

He ignores it. It’s just his overactive mind, he tells himself, willing his heartbeat to calm down before he got work up enough that he entered a state of mind where only violence could calm him.

He replaces the drives and pushes the drawers shut with one hand, more roughly than he’d intended, and then panics when he realizes the drawer will lock automatically when it slides back into place. Unthinkingly, he sticks his finger in just in as the drawer is about to close in.

“Fuck,” he cries out, loudly shattering the silence he’s been so careful to maintain. Pausing, he waits, listening. 

Five seconds pass, then ten, then a full minute. There’s no indication that he was heard by anyone except for himself, no footsteps down the hall, no twist of the doorknob.

“Okay,” he mouths, words barely stirring the air. He ignores his smarting fingers and switches the drives back, leaving the data gathered in its rightful place and shoving his own empty copies back in his pocket. Before he can rethink, before he can second guess himself, he shuts the drawer with a soft thud and makes like hell out of there.

Out in the hallway, Bruce breathes, feeling like he’d been breathing through dust and was only now getting a taste of clean air. His heart rate calms as he leans on the wall for support.

“Bruce?”

He jumps, spins, and nearly falls backwards in his haste to turn around. The Captain, followed by Bucky, stand staring at him, both with concerned furrows on their brows.

Wide-eyed, Bruce stalls, searching for something to say. 

“Are you okay?” Bucky asks. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”

“Uh, what?” Is the best that he can come up with. “Me, yeah, I’m fine. I just - was - I got angry?”

Cap and Bucky do that thing they do where they have an entire conversation without saying a word. It’s a language made up entirely of eyebrow twitches. “What happened to set you off like that? Shit, is this about our little play date with Stark?”

“No!” Bruce shakes his head, trying to compose himself while still feeling unbalanced. “Uh, not that. I’m - look, I can’t talk about it, I’ll just set myself off.”

Their postures soften with understanding. Cap claps a hand on his shoulder and nods. “Sure, Bruce. Let us know if you need anything, yeah?”

Bruce makes a noise in the back of his throat, hoping it’ll pass as agreement. Head down, he makes his escape.

 

* * *

 

 

So this was a bit of a bump in the road, Tony thinks to himself, tapping his fingers against the desk in his workshop. Bruce’s stammered apology for not grabbing the drives isn’t exactly what Tony needs to hear right now but he could still work with this. 

He’ll just have to go and grab the drives himself.

His head hits the table with a solid  _ thunk _ , staring at the floor. So maybe  _ minor _ isn’t exactly the right word to use.

It’s fine, though. It’s fine, because JARVIS is ready to go and once he has the drive, this entire mess will clear and all the threads will untangle.

There’s no point in lingering over circumstances that he can’t control at the moment, much as it irks him, so he treks up to the penthouse to where his laptop is, to where he can give himself mack a modicum of control.

Everything is set up already; all that was really left to do was press a few keys and then JARVIS would go online. The entire building was already set up so that JARVIS would have access to the building’s cameras and to the recently installed speakers, as well as access to all the data stored in any SI computers.

A few more lines of code, a few clicks, and all he had to do was hit enter. He inhales, a smile flitting across his mouth, and JARVIS starts filling in the spaces that Tony created for him.

 

* * *

 

 

It takes three hours for everything to settle. Tony waits, sprawled on his couch, staring up at the ceiling and waiting to see if the hours of work (most of them drunk) had paid off. And then JARVIS speaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in a super cheery mood so I kinda feel good about this chapter. Sorry there hasn't been much S/T/B interaction, but! I promise it's coming.   
> Next chapter is almost complete, so check back next Saturday for more!
> 
> Also thank you to everyone who's left a comment or kudos! Every single new one that I see just lights up my entire day.  
> <3


	6. Chapter 6

He has to practically beg Bruce to give him the location of the Avengers’ main hide-out, managed only after a week of constant weaseling. Tony vowed to himself that he’d be less annoying to Bruce. The man was clearly desensitized after six years of constant exposure.

But that was just the easy part. Now comes the part where Tony has to sneak that belongs to a house full of people who are currently on high alert and searching for spies or infiltrators. He’d have to climb some walls.

* * *

It just looked so . . . normal. Unsettlingly normal. Like, it was an actual house with blue paint and windows and a doorbell and all of it.

Tony hadn’t exactly thought about what to expect when he arrived but it sure as hell wasn’t this. It was decently-sized, modest, and just far enough away from the city that it might count as a suburb. The lawn outside could use a little taming but overall it was just a house. Nothing dark or dingy about it.

Actually, it looked like the kind of house he might’ve expected Blondie and - well, they were Rogers and Barnes now that he knew their names - Barnes to have if they were a normal couple. Rogers had that sort of suburbia, sunshine-y type goodness to him. He’d be the kind of guy who has three kids and two dogs and threw balls with them every afternoon, if it weren’t for all the silent, broody  _ I-don’t-like-you _ glares and the exasperation he made no effort to hide every time Tony so much as opened his mouth. 

And the gang thing. That was also a factor.

_ Anyway, _ Tony refocuses himself. Bruce had informed him that no one would be in the house around one in the afternoon, so he’d decided that he might as well come now. There was no point in crawling around in the darkness trying to break his way in if he could come in broad daylight. With a key.

Not that anyone knew he had it. He may have slightly copied it from Bruce’s keychain while the other man had been in the bathroom. He grins at himself. Fooling Bruce into giving him everything he’d needed was all too easy. Bruce had been too distracted and too high on caffeine when Tony had carefully teased the time when the house would be empty out of him. Tony doubts Bruce even remembers it ever happened, at this point.

One of the benefits of having a science bro for so long was knowing all their habits and weaknesses.

There wasn’t a car parked in front of the house or in back - he’d checked - but even so, he proceeded with caution, keeping his head down and back to the street in case any neighbors might happen to glance out of a window. The key slide in with a satisfying click and he opened the door just enough to slip inside with quiet purpose. 

He doesn’t stop to look around much beyond noticing that the air had a stillness to it, speaking, familiarly, of an empty home. All he needed to do was find an office and dig through whatever was in there until he found what he was looking for.

Tony comes across a cozy living room  _ (Okay, seriously, is this a secret lair or Martha Stewart’s house?),  _ a clean kitchen, a circular dining table with more than a few marks marring the worn brown wood ( _ Are those knife marks?) _ , and then a hallway lined with closed doors. 

He turns down that hallway, heart pounding in his ears, a touch of giddiness forcing him past any hesitance he has. Past-teenager-Tony would never have guessed at where Future-Tony is right now, for all the trouble that he’d gotten into.

Was still getting into, clearly. He couldn’t wait to tell Rhodey.

That’s the second-to-last thought in his mind when he tries the first door handle he comes across. The last one is how funny it is, that blackness closes in on the world just like in some slapstick Saturday morning cartoon, a rapidly constricting circle that obscures his vision until he’s floating in a fuzzy, warm dark.

* * *

When he comes to, he’s strapped down to a chair in what appears to be a basement.

_ Great, _ he thinks, heart rate jumping up.

His head throbs; someone must have hit him pretty hard while he’d been occupied. His wrists also ached, bent as they are into an awkward position between the small of his back and the cold metal of the chair he’s bound to. They’ve also been tied up with thick rope that chafes against his skin. He pulls, testing the give, and winces at the rough texture. There’s no slack in the rope to wiggle through.

He takes in his surroundings, putting his minor pains on the back burner, trying to ignore the chilling bite of cold air against his skin. He’s not sure if it’s the basement’s temperature or maybe just his imagination, sprinkled with the knowledge that he’d fucked up and is probably about to die.

At least he’s alone, for now, a chance to get his bearings and maybe calm himself down from the edge of the panic attack that’s closing in on him. The last time he’d been this close to hyperventilation, he remembers, was back when he’d been just a kid who cared too much about what his father told him. 

Look, he even had a bump forming on the back of his head to match memories!

He pauses, questions how fuzzy he really is right now and laughs at himself for his terrible humor. His eyes and the bridge of his nose burn with the onset of tears even as he let out a final chuckle.

He didn’t even know why he was crying. This wasn’t even close to the first time he’d found himself tied up in some dark and musty basement, the consequence of being Howard Stark’s only son and heir.

This was the first time it was his fault, though.

He glances up at the ceiling, where a single bare bulb shines a white light down directly over him, reminding him of some B-rated spy movie he’d once seen with Rhodey.

At the very least, Bruce would find out he was here and help him. Tony didn’t have too many friends - he could count them all on one hand - but friends did that kind of stuff for each other, right? They bailed each other out even when threatened with an angry vigilante gang leader who almost certainly carried a gun on him?

In any case, Rhodey would notice he was missing pretty soon. He had class tomorrow (one he actually bothered to attend, if only because Rhodey had begged him to). Rhodey would realize something was wrong when he couldn’t find Tony at his apartment near campus or at the Tower. Mother-Hen-Rhodey would check, the bastard, and Tony knows  _ that _ one from experience.

He’s unspeakably grateful for it.

_ Aw, fuck Stop being such a sissy, Stark,  _ he scolds himself.  _ Stop crying like a little girl. Stark men are made of iron. _

It’s some time before he hears a door at the top of the flight of stairs swing open. He passes the time by drawing schematics in his mind until he’s itching for a pencil to scribble with. It puts him in an irritable, sarcastic sort of mood, which is bad, seeing as how Rogers and Barnes now make themselves visible, followed by a procession of a few others making their way down into his waiting room.

Bruce is among them, face pale and worried, practically tripping over himself to get down the stairs. He rushes at Tony, stopped only by a cold command from Rogers.

Yikes. Captain Jackass is in a bad mood.

“Heya, Brucie,” Tony says cheerfully. “Early birthday surprise?”

* * *

Bruce is pinching the bridge of his nose and Tony is about to die. Something about that is ridiculously funny to him, and try as he might he can’t find it in himself to hold back a snicker.

“Is something funny to you here?” Rogers asks disapprovingly, arms crossed over his chest, muscles bulging. Tony’s going to blame a combination of young-adult libido and the cocktail of adrenaline running through him on the fact that he’s less terrified then - well, he’ll say  _ appreciative _ , of those muscles.

Barnes must catch him staring, because the brunet’s shoulders shake in a soundless laugh where Rogers isn’t looking. Tony’s careful not to let a smile slip through when Barnes sends a subtle wink his way.

“Sorry,” Tony apologizes, flippant. “It’s just Bruce looks like he’s a father trying to deal with a disobedient child. Just look at his face!”

Bruce jumps in his haste to plead with Rogers, “Wait, Cap, it’s just the concussion, he’s not in his right mind right now.”

“Bruce, stop talking. Right now.” 

Bruce does. Even Tony sobers at the tone.

Rogers pulls out two drives out of nowhere. “Looking for these, I gather?”

Tony turns to Bruce, betrayed. “You told him?!”

Hands held up, Bruce shrugs helplessly. “Clint already told Cap you were here, it was too late to . . . .” He trails off, unable to finish.

Petulantly, Tony rolls his eyes, trying to imbue the movement with every amount of annoyance he’s capable of shoving into it.

Rogers assumes the same pinched expression Bruce was wearing earlier. “Do you take anything seriously? I have a gun tucked into my holster and you want to play games and poke fun at your professor?”

Tony pretends to consider the questions gravely. “Nope, and hell yeah.”

“So then you have no preservation instincts to speak of.”

“Welp,” he does his best to shrug through his bounds. It’s awkward and unsuccessful. Whoever tied the rope was damn good. He’d have to compliment the chef later; it wasn’t many kidnappings that he had difficulty getting out of a rope tie. “You could say that. Or you could remember that Dr. Banner over there has been my friend and teacher for years, and since you work with him so closely, I’ll bet you already know all about the berserker rage he gets in when he’s upset.”

Examining Bruce, relieved that he can say the words and mean them, he points out, “He looks pretty upset already. Imagine how bad it would be if you pulled that trigger.”

The redhead and the dirty blond, both of whom he knows he’s never seen before, remain impassive. Bruce heaves another exasperated sigh (Tony is reminded of that old school-yard saying about seven years off a life for every sigh a person makes), Rogers looks like he’s tipping over into murderous anger territory, and Barnes’ lips twitch slyly.

Not a bad audience to screw with. If this had been a gala or some such event, he would have had quite a pleasure stirring up trouble with them, maybe taking a crack at cracking the calm facade the two in back wore. As it was, his usual satisfaction at pissing people off was marred by his maybe-slightly-larger-than-tiny fear of dying.

Rogers holds his eyes, a little staring contest that Tony was just childish enough to indulge in. Several moments pass in silence, no one moving, and the Rogers turns back to the dirty blond and nods. “Barton, go ahead.”

The man, Barton, comes and sets about loosening the ropes. The room clears out, everyone except Bruce following their leader up the stairs. Bruce is already hovering over Tony like a duck, hands brushing over his tender head. The blood is dry now, but he’ll probably have a bruise there for a few days.

“I’m fine. You always did tell me that I’ve got a hard head.” Tony assures.

Bruce moves around to check Tony’s eyes, not paying Tony any mind (rude), having him tilt his head up towards the light in the ceiling, fawning until Barton snaps, “I can’t get him out of here if you’re in my way.”

Clearly unhappy, Bruce steps back to let Barton do his thing, and before he really knows it, he finds himself sitting in the kitchen he’d glanced at earlier, surrounded by blank stares and closed off frowns. 

They wait while Bruce produces a first aid kit from under the sink and an ice pack to go along with it. When he sees Tony’s expression upon turning back to the table, he doesn’t even give the younger man a chance to complain. “Shut up and let fix you.  _ Quietly. _ ”

He’s not happy about it, but he complies, if only because Rogers had taken a breath in preparation to speak.

“You wanted the flash drives. Why?”

Wondering if Rogers is being facetious or if he really is as stupid as he is pretty, Tony boggles. “You stole my data!”

“And yet you didn’t call the police, you just decided to sneak in here and steal it back.” Barnes points out. 

Rogers finishes the thought. “What’s on there that you feel the need to hide from the authorities.”

Tony considers them. “You guys really are stupid -  _ ow, fuck _ , watch it!” He yelps behind him.

“Whoops, sorry,” Bruce apologizes, not sounding too apologetic. 

“Uh-huh,” Tony mutters, then returns his attention to Thing One and Thing Two. “Okay, so here’s the thing. You stole drives from my company’s computers that may have sensitive information. Some of it is on tech that doesn’t need to be in vigilante hands, and some of it is information about the people I employ in my company.  _ Sensitive _ information. I don’t know what the hell you thought you were gonna find by randomly downloading data off of Obie’s computer, but whatever it is, you don’t get to have it.” He sneers. “I’m not exactly the shining CEO-in-training my dad wanted me to be, but I’m damn well competent enough to care about the people who make up my company.”

“And you didn’t go to the police because . . . .” Barnes trails off, waiting for Tony to finish out the sentence. 

When he takes a minute too long to respond, the redhead answers for him, her head jerking a bit to Bruce, who’s now taping a tiny strip of gauze onto Tony’s head where he assumes the bleeding was. “He didn’t want Banner in trouble. Clearly.”

She gets a reproachful look from Barnes, but no one else comments, seeming to wait on Tony for a response.

He relents. “Yeah. Mostly that, and also I can do what the police can do. Except ten times better. And also with better tech.”

“Idiot,” Bruce hisses behind him.

“Not very modest, are ya?” Barton laughs.

Narrowing his eyes, Tony lifts his chin up. He knew plenty of men like the ones in front of him, who looked at him with disbelief, choosing to ignore what he’d built for his father’s empire in favor of underestimating him. They loved to rub their obvious underestimation of his abilities in his face.

Except the red-head. She kept looking on with no discernable change in expression, excepting for the sharp glint of understanding that Tony thought he might have imagined as she looked him over in the wake of Barton’s comment.

He likes her, Tony decides. She doesn’t seem like one to underestimate an opponent.

In any case, whatever Barnes, Rogers, or Barton thought of him, he  _ was  _ capable of solving this mess out for himself, without police interference.

“I don’t need to be,” is all he deigns to give Barton as a response.

That seems to leave them at some sort of stalemate. Bruce finishes up with his stressing and sits down.

Rogers puts both hands flat on the table. “Stark. I believe you, and Bruce, when you say you don’t know anything about double-dealing weapons to the local gangs. I also think that you think you want to get involved with this - I get that, the wanting to help. But you need to stay out of this. No,” he holds a hand up, staving off Tony’s reply for the moment. “This isn’t some fun game to play in your free time. This is about people who engage in crime runs, stealing from stores, from banks, destroying things just because they can, and sometimes even stealing and torturing people. This isn’t like a movie or a video game, where you stop any time you want. This is real.”

He doesn’t give Captain Asshat a chance to finish his lecture. “Yeah, asshole, I know that, why do you think I’m so interested in being involved? If Stark Industries is somehow involved in this, that makes it real and that makes it really my business. Save your lectures for someone who cares!”

Rogers inhales, starts again. “Stark, I’m warning you -”

If steam started coming out of Tony’s ears, he wouldn’t be surprised. Fuming, he all but yells, “No, I’m warning you! You can’t tell me to back off; you’re not  _ my _ bonehead gang leader. Actually,” he says, changing track, “if you don’t back off, I  _ will  _ go to the police, Bruce be damned.”

He was bluffing; of course he was bluffing, but it Rogers took pause nevertheless. There are a tense few seconds where Tony swears he can hear the tick of a clock before the red-head intervenes again.

“Or we could just work together.”

They consider her, then each other.

Yeah, Tony likes her.

* * *

They part after a few more hours of arguing back and forth with each other. Rogers still doesn’t trust Tony, that much is obvious, but the man refuses to outright say so. Instead, he manages to keep finding reasons on why it would be a bad idea to let Tony do anything, from his age to his relationship with the company.

At first Tony isn’t sure that they’ll get anywhere; most of the others, Barnes included, advocated for him. Barnes himself had pointed out that Tony had resources and intelligence they could use (Tony doesn’t pinken at that,  _ he doesn’t _ ). He says it with - not exactly a warm smile, because Tony doesn’t think the guy really does warm smiles (though he’s only really seen Barnes in two modes: flirty and broody), but it’s enough to make Tony feel like he’s not totally unwelcome here.

Bruce refused to take part in the argument past calling Tony an idiot for trying to stick his nose in, and grumbling under his breath. Tony isn’t quite sure but ‘ _ stupid _ ’ and ‘ _ Cap _ ’ might have been words involved.

But maybe Rogers isn’t as much of a stubborn asshole as Tony thought him to be. Once he sees he’s outnumbered by most of the group, hearing their reasoning, he does relent. Not because he agrees with them, Tony’s sure, but Tony suspects that he truly does value their opinions.

It doesn’t end there, because of course it wouldn’t. Tony has to fight for the drives back, too. This time he’s mostly fighting on his own; Rogers’ crew has apparently done just about as much arguing with their leader as they’re willing for one day. Tony doesn’t let it go on for very long; he just issues an ultimatum. The drives back, or Rogers won’t get a single bit of the information that Tony collects on his own. 

The threat doesn’t elicit much of a fear response until Tony mentions that JARVIS is collecting information as they speak. At that, Bruce makes an involuntary noise of surprise.

“JARVIS is up?”

Tony beams, forgetting that he’s never mentioned the development to Bruce. Even Barnes remembers hearing Tony talk about it from his last trip to  Stark Tower.

Rogers doesn’t really understand the significance until Tony explains. “JARVIS is my AI. He’s essentially routed into the entirety of Stark Tower; he has access to every camera and computer in the building and I can easily give him access to a lot more than that. Like I said, he’s currently working on it.”

It’s only after getting assurances from Bruce that JARVIS would be able to do as Tony claims that he reluctantly relinquishes the drives to Tony, conditional on the guarantee that Tony will share whatever he finds with them.

When Tony leaves, he allows himself a smug smile on his way out. He’s got what he wanted and as a bonus, he now has allies where he once had enemies - reluctant allies, but hey, he’d take it for now. 

Not bad for his first break-in.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's late, but it's still technically Saturday where I'm at so I'm counting this as on time.  
> I gave this chapter a look over for spelling/grammar but I might have missed something, so just let me know and I'll fix it!  
> In other news, I'm going out of the country on Monday for about two weeks and I'm not sure if there will be an update this coming Saturday. I'll do my best but no promises!
> 
> Okay, I'm done for the night!  
> Let me know what you guys thought? I'd love to hear from you! <3


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